What Remains
by TheCatWithTheHat
Summary: All that remained of his beloved wife was a smooth stone and a handful of wet flowers...Ulquiorra sank to his knees in the mud and cried. -oneshot.


**A/N: I love oneshots. :D Um, I think I should explain the names, since I don't want you all to think I downloaded some sort of generic Japanese name generator. The woman who voices Orihime is named Yuki Matsuoka, and the man who voices Ulquiorra (and every single other awesome character) is Daisuke Namikawa. **

**OMFG I LOVE THAT GUY~**

**Ok. Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. I do own Bacon, though. That stuff is awesome.**

* * *

It was cold, but he didn't care.

It was wet, but he didn't care.

His back was hunched over, his shoulders slumped. Rain dripped from his black locks, from his fingertips. His fancy white shirt was soaked, showing his pale skin, revealing the gothic 4 tattoo over his left breast. His leather belt strained to hold up his pants, the fabric was heavier now that is was so wet. His shoes were splattered with mud, and his tie hung loosely around his neck.

Where once green tears had been marked on his face, real tears ran freely, although they might have been rain.

His emerald eyes were closed.

"...they'll get sick. Listen, Ulquiorra, I'm going to take Yuki and Daisuke to my house. You come when you're good and ready, okay? Chad and I will have them as long as you need."

The voice of her friend, Arisawa Tatsuki, barely registered in his mind. His eyes slid open, resting on the small gray slab that was all that remained of her.

Slowly all the mourners left, leaving him alone.

Through blurry eyes and dripping lashes, he registered the engraved words on the stone: ORIHIME SCHIFFER. FRIEND. MOTHER. WIFE.

There was a message carved in letters too small for him to see, as well as the date of her birth and death.

A small date, marking the end of a life. Of her life.

He clearly remembered everything about her. How he'd shown up on her doorstep that night. It had been raining then, just as it was raining now. She'd been surprised at first. Of course she had.

At first it was awkward. They struggled with their feelings. But then they had been made aware of the other's emotion, and life was bliss.

When she turned twenty-two, they'd married. The wedding was small, but he didn't care. It was the wedding night that he'd really looked forward to. Soon after, they were blessed with the news that she was pregnant.

Those months were difficult, especially towards the end. But she glowed. Inside and out.

And every second he was falling even more in love with her. He would wake up in the mornings and see her face, and think that the love he was feeling at that moment, compared to the love he had felt yesterday, was like an ocean compared to a tidal wave. Every minute, he fell deeper in love with her.

Their daughter was born soon after. She was precious. A perfect combination of both of them. Her name was Yuki. She had chosen that name, and he was a slave to her wishes.

Weeks of sleepless nights and smelly diapers followed, but it made the two grow even closer. And on the day that they sent Yuki off to her first day of kindergarten - their daughter was four and a half - she turned to him and said she was pregnant again.

The baby was born. A boy this time, Daisuke. Five year old Yuki adored her brother, and the adoration was matched by her parents.

But there was something wrong.

She was losing energy, fast. Sometimes she would be doing something as mindless as cooking macaroni for the children, and she would have to sit and catch her breath. She insisted she was fine, but when Daisuke's crying at night wouldn't even wake her slumber, he knew there was something wrong.

They went to the doctor, and six weeks later, they received the results of her lab test.

She read it first, her lips pressed together tightly as she scanned the page before handing it wordlessly to him. Heart pounding, he slowly read what was written on the page.

She was very ill. The doctors would do all they could, but what it boiled down to was that she had about a year left to live.

He remembered how the tears had filled his eyes. For the first time, his throat closed. He put the paper down and looked at his fist, bewildered about how it was shaking.

First Yuki turned six, and Daisuke turned two. She was confined to a wheelchair then, still happy and smiling, but looking worn.

Her glow was gone.

He remembered her last day like it was yesterday. She was lying in her bed, with him kneeling beside her, holding her frail hand in his. Tears filled her eyes.

Her hand went limp.

He stayed beside her for an hour. Yuki, worried, called the only number her six-year-old self knew: her godmother, Arisawa.

And that was that.

All that remained of his beloved wife was a smooth stone and a handful of wet flowers.

Ulquiorra sank to his knees in the mud and cried.

* * *

He didn't talk to his children about her. In fact, it was a subject he avoided at all costs. He talked to them about everything else, anything else. He told stories about his time as an Espada, about his friend Grimmjow, who visited sometimes. He was the children's godfather, and he would play with them for hours.

Ulquiorra tried to be a good dad. He read Yuki and Daisuke fairy tales every night from her favorite collection, and tucked them into bed. He packed them lunches and bought new clothes. He sent them to school, helped with their homework.

But he wasn't a mom.

Yuki was sixteen now. She had grown into a gorgeous thing: thick, black hair flowed down her back, emerald eyes sparkled from pale skin and full lips. She had the same figure as her mother, and was as happy and easygoing as his wife. Although, Yuki was a little more down-to-earth; not all of her mother's naïtivité ran through her veins.

Daisuke was twelve. The boy had dark brown hair and grey eyes. He sported long, full eyelashes and had a dreamy look and voice that Ulquiorra knew would make the girls fall at his feet when he was older. He was slightly quieter than his sister, less of a social butterfly, although he had a solid group of friends that he hung out with - apparently the term "played with" was outdated now, but what did he know? He was a dad, after all - and seemed to be pretty strong with.

He was so proud of both of them, and every day was reminded of how much they were like their mother.

It was a Friday afternoon. He pulled into the parking lot of their apartment and was surprised to see Yuki's secondhand car she'd gotten for her birthday parked in its spot. He thought she'd be out until late with her friends.

He got out of his car and made his way up to the apartment, opening the door quietly. He saw Yuki's not-so-sensible shoes on the rack, as well as Daisuke's dirty sneakers kicked carelessly on the floor. Automatically, he put them on the rack, placing his own shoes down and setting his briefcase down on the ground.

He crept to his daughter's room. The door was closed; light spilled from under it. He knelt silently and peered through the keyhole.

Daisuke and Yuki were sitting cross-legged on the bed, facing each other. He could see both of their faces, which were set seriously. Both his son and his daughter were wrapped in their mother's pajamas - Diasuke had his sleeves pressed to his nose, inhaling, but Yuki secretly wore hers every night, so all she would smell was her own scent.

Although it would have been comical at any other time to see Daisuke wrapped in pink, girly PJs, there was nothing funny about this moment. His stomach dropped.

They were both home on a Friday? Something must be wrong. Plus, Yuki was letting her dirty little brother into her room? Letting him onto her bed? He frowned.

"You really want to know?"

Yuki's voice - the exact same as hers - floated to his ears. He watched as Daisuke nodded emphatically.

"Mm-hmm! Dad never talks about her. Come on! Tell me exactly, every single thing. He's not home right now! You'll never get another chance!"

His heart plummeted. They were talking about their mother. His wife.

Orihime.

"Okay. Hmm..." Yuki tapped a nail on her chin. "Okay. She had orange hair, gray eyes like you."

Daisuke's eyes lit up. He looked so much like her when he did that. "What else?"

"Well, she liked to wear simple clothes, like flowy skirts and little cotton sweaters. She was so...mommish. Like, she used to always have cookies waiting for me when we got home."

"Really?"

"Yeah. And Tatsuki-san was her bestest friend. They were peas in a pod. That's why she's our godmom, you know. And, Uh...she was a first grade teacher. She loved little children so much. She had the most beautiful laugh."

Ulquiorra's eyes were stinging. His knees were aching on the hard wood floor as memories of his wife flooded his mind.

She had had the most beautiful laugh. Yuki was right.

"She had the oddest appetite, though. Like you, Daisuke. She liked wasabi and red bean paste on everything, just like you."

"Really!"

"Yeah."

Ulquiorra sat back on his heels and swiped his wrist across his eyes. Then he leaned against the wall, tilting his head back and resting his forearms on his knees.

There was a second of silence, and then quick footsteps sounded and the door was yanked open. Ulquiorra looked up; Yuki was outlined in the doorway, her legs set firmly and her hand on her hip. Daisuke peered around her, his gray eyes fixed on his father.

"Hi," said Ulquiorra weakly.

Yuki didn't say anything. Neither did Daisuke.

"You describe her really well," Ulquiorra stated.

It was silent, and then Daisuke detached from his sister. He came toward his dad and climbed into his lap, like he hadn't done in a while. He nestled his head against his dad's chest, over his tattoo and his beating heart.

"Will you tell us about her?" he asked simply.

Ulquiorra found himself nodding, and he began to speak.

Yuki sank to the floor, her eyes on her father as his spilled his memories of their mother, his wife.

Orihime.

As the words flowed, he felt the tears come, felt them run silently down his cheeks. But he didn't stop talking.

And as he talked, he felt something inside of him, a fist that bad been clenched since the day that letter came eleven years ago, in let go of him.

All he was was sitting in the hallway with his children, and he knew that she wasn't just a now slightly eroded gray stone and flowers that had long since wilted.

She lived on in their children, in him. She lived where she had taught him to know: in his heart.

And for the first time, as he looked at his children, as he spilled about their mother, he felt like they were a family.

* * *

**:'( D'aww…**


End file.
